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1/14/09

KIPP Brooklyn Unionize

Charters have a dualism about them. On one hand they have the power to do things differently (and possibly better, or not) and they also have a reputation for being very selective (which can be good or bad). As we now see, KIPP teachers are unionizing. They say it is for the students, and I don't doubt it, but really its because they fear for their jobs like the rest of the teaching world!

In a ground-breaking development, the teachers of KIPP AMP Charter School in Brooklyn today informed their co-principals that they were organizing themselves into a union and seeking official recognition from the state Public Employees Relations Board.

A super-majority of the KIPP AMP teaching faculty has signed authorization cards with the United Federation of Teachers, well in excess of the threshold needed for official recognition under state labor law for public employees.

In a letter delivered to co-principals Jeff Li and Melissa Perry this morning, the teachers said that they had decided to unionize in order to secure teacher voice and respect for the work of teachers in their school. We want “to ensure that the [KIPP] motto of ‘team and family’ is realized in the form of mutual respect and validation for the work that is done [by teachers] each day,” they wrote.

The letter stressed that the decision to organize was directly connected to the teachers’ commitment to their students. “[A] strong and committed staff,” the teachers wrote, “is the first step to student achievement.” Unionization, the teachers believe, will help create the conditions for recruiting and retaining such a staff.

“We organized to make sure teachers had a voice, and could speak their minds on educational matters without fearing for their job,” says KIPP AMP teacher Luisa Bonifacio.

“For us,” KIPP AMP teacher Emily Fernandez explains, “unionization is ultimately all about student achievement, and the ability of teachers to best serve students at this crucial middle school time in their education.”

KIPP AMP teachers believe that the high staff turnover at the school has harmed their efforts to build a positive and consistent school culture for their students. “There is a need to make the teacher position more sustainable,” says Bonifacio, “so that teachers don’t burn out, but are able to make a long-term commitment to the students and the school.”

KIPP AMP teacher Leila Chakravarty makes a powerful case that organizing a union is necessary to “build a sustainable community in our school” and address the problem of teacher turnover. “Because as KIPP teachers we are so invested in our kids and form such close bonds with them, because we are always available to our students by telephone and email and spend ten hours every day with them, it is so vital and important that they feel they can count on us, and we will continue to be there. When they become close to a teacher who is gone in three months because she has burnt out, it undermines the trust we are working so hard to build.”

The teachers at KIPP AMP have received strong support for their organizing efforts from the parents and families at the school.

At the same time as the KIPP AMP teachers informed their principal of their decision to organize, UFT President Randi Weingarten reached out to KIPP co-founder and New York City Superintendent Dave Levin, informing him of the developments at the school and of the UFT’s intention to enter into collective bargaining at another New York City KIPP school, KIPP Infinity Charter School, where the teaching staff are members of the UFT.

Weingarten told Levin that the KIPP teachers and the UFT want to work cooperatively with KIPP to ensure that its New York City schools provide the very best education for their students and families. She asked KIPP to recognize the unionization of the KIPP AMP teachers immediately so that this work could begin without delay.

“KIPP teachers want what all good teachers want — the respect, the support and the tools necessary to do the best possible job of educating their students,” Weingarten said. “Organizing into a union of educational professionals will give them the collective voice and support to make that happen.”

“We know that teacher turnover is a major concern across the charter school movement,” Weingarten noted. “The unionization of KIPP’s New York City schools provides a unique opportunity to create a model of sustainable teacher recruitment, development and retention.”

Since the original KIPP Academy Charter School is a conversion charter school with UFT representation, educators at three of the four KIPP schools in New York City will now be members of the UFT.